Waiting and Recovery
by A Wandering Minstrel
Summary: Lestrade waits for news of Sherlock and John at the hospital. Mrs. Hudson looks after her boys. Two companion pieces.
1. Waiting

**Title: **Waiting

**Spoilers:** None

**Summary:** Lestrade awaits news of John and Sherlock at the hospital.

**Author's Notes:** The first of two companion pieces. I wanted to do something with the parent roles that Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson play in John and Sherlock's lives.

Medical stuff is as accurate as I could make it, but some of it has been fudged for storytelling's sake.

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><p>There was something particularly grim about hospital coffee. It was even worse than the coffee at the station and Lestrade was under the impression that was the worst coffee in London, if not the entire United Kingdom. Yet, somehow he was on his third cup as he waited for news of John and Sherlock. The waiting was where they got you, he supposed. The waiting was what made you think you needed coffee, no matter how disgusting or expensive it might be.<p>

There was really no need for him to sit around and drink bad coffee. There was no obligation. But Lestrade felt that isomeone/i should be waiting and giving a damn if John and Sherlock were all right. They weren't official employees; he had no paperwork telling him their next of kin. For all the hours he'd worked with them he didn't know anything about their families - if they had any or who they might liked called. He seemed to vaguely remember John mentioning a sister and Sherlock speaking of his mother, but he had no numbers to call or names to go by. Besides, if Donovan or Dimmock or even Anderson were hurt, he would wait for them. And, to Lestrade, Sherlock and John were just as much 'his' people as they were.

There was also the guilt that he hadn't found them sooner. The only clue they'd had to go by was Sherlock shouting 'aerosol!' into his mobile before it was cut off. In fact, given the strange interworking of Sherlock Holmes' mind, it was a minor miracle they'd been able to figure out his line of thought at all. But Lestrade couldn't help but feel that if he'd been a little cleverer Sherlock and John wouldn't have been as badly off as they were.

By the time they'd gotten to the warehouse, it had been cleared out, leaving only Sherlock and John behind. They were held in separate rooms, both badly beaten up and both more concerned that the other was being taken care of first.

John had taken a 6'5" constable clean off his feet when they found him and was about to clonk him with a piece of concrete when Lestrade managed to call him off. He was obviously concussed, repeating himself unnecessarily, having a bit of trouble with his s's and occasionally losing focus in his eyes and grabbing on to Lestrade's arm as though he were going to fall over, even though he was on the floor. One of his wrists was bent at a wrong angle, though he assured Lestrade that it wasn't his 'scalpel hand'. As though that was what Lestrade was worried about.

He'd left John in the care of the constable, who was very good natured about being attacked and in fact seemed to find it amusing. Lestrade kept his name in mind as someone who might potentially work well with Sherlock.

Sherlock himself was across the main room in a small office, curled up in the foetal position when they found him. His face was black and blue and his breathing was hoarse with pain. He started talking the moment Lestrade crouched down beside him, first asking if John was all right, then snapping at Donovan that he'd rather have a monkey with a chainsaw see to him than receive medical attention from her, then starting in on a long diatribe about his attackers. It was such a long, rapid diatribe that Lestrade eventually gave up trying to remember it and simply turned on the memo ap in his mobile and held it out for him while he ranted. That's why he'd downloaded the bloody thing in the first place, after all. Once Sherlock was done, he'd asked once more if John was all right and promptly passed out.

That had been about three hours ago now and John and Sherlock had been in surgery for one and a half of them. Donovan was back at the station, running down the leads that John and Sherlock had given them and occasionally sending him snarky texts regarding the relative usefulness of Sherlock's report. For all of his brilliance, Lestrade had to admit that when it came to getting descriptions of people, John's concise approach had more value. It was far easier to put out a BOLO for a man with black hair and a scar than for one who'd broken his leg as a child and probably had at least one Polish parent.

Eventually the surgeon who was looking after Sherlock made his way in to the waiting room and over to Lestrade. He was a pompous, snotty sort of man who walked with a swagger and refused to use anything but medical jargon, no matter who he was speaking to. Lestrade understood exactly one thing of what he said - Sherlock was out of surgery. That he was certain of. He also thought, from what he could piece together, that the internal bleeding was worse than they'd originally thought, but had been stopped. Sherlock was now in some place called PACU, which the doctor explained, in an extremely patronizing manner, was where patients went to wake up after surgery. The doctor refused to make any predictions about whether or not Sherlock would recover, but assured him that for now, he was resting comfortably.

The clock on the wall of the waiting room had just hit midnight when John's surgeon came in. She was a small, attractive oriental woman who came up barely to Lestrade's shoulder and smiled in a way that made you smile back automatically. She sat in the next chair and leaned in to speak to him.

"Dr. Watson has been out of surgery for awhile," she said. "But he woke up from the anaesthetic a bit combative. I wanted to make sure it was just a result of the sedation and not a sign of a more serious head injury than we first thought."

"John isn't usually combative," Lestrade said. He thought about that for a moment and then added, "unless it's necessary."

"It's not uncommon with military personnel, especially those who've been in the heart of things like Dr. Watson," she said. "He's calmed down now. His friend woke up and said 'John, you're being ridiculous' and he settled down." Lestrade smiled at that. "He's resting comfortably now. The internal injuries are minimal, though the break in his wrist is pretty serious. We've got that sorted out for now. He'll probably be in the hospital for a few days for monitoring, but he should make a full recovery."

Lestrade let out a long, involuntary sigh and nodded. "Thank you," he said. She smiled and he smiled back.

"Both Dr. Watson and his friend will be in the recovery unit for the next few hours, until beds free up for them on the ward," she said. "A nurse will come out and tell you when they've been moved, unless you're planning on going home?"

Lestrade thought for a moment and then shook his head. "I'll be here," he said.

She nodded and they stood up together. He shook her hand before she left and thanked her again.

He felt more relieved than he expected to feel at the news that both John and Sherlock would be all right. He'd always felt very protective of Sherlock, who went through the world without looking where he was going and Lestrade felt like someone needed to make sure he wasn't going to walk into something or fall into a pot hole. Now he had John, who was a genuinely good person and was, achingly slowly, inching Sherlock into being a good person, or at least a less indifferent one. Whatever their flaws or virtues, they were his people. And they were, for the moment at least, okay.

Now it was time for more waiting- and another cup of coffee.


	2. Recovery

**Title: **Recovery

**Spoilers: **None

**Summary:** Mrs. Hudson takes care of her boys.

**Author's notes:** This is the second of two companion pieces, this one from Mrs. Hudson's POV. I wanted to do something with the parental roles they tend to play in John and Sherlock's lives.

The conversation John and Sherlock have near the end was inspired by a comment made during the _A Study in Pink_ commentary with Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss.

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><p>Mrs. Hudson had spent most of the morning cleaning 221b Baker Street. She hadn't intended to, she'd simply gone upstairs to see that everything was in order for when John came home that afternoon. He'd called the night before to let her know he was going to be discharged from the hospital in the morning. Once she got up there, however, she'd decided that the place needed a bit of dusting. Then she'd noticed the floor wanted a bit of a hoovering. Then she'd realized the kitchen should be given a bit of cleaning. Then she'd discovered that the only food in the fridge was rotten, so she'd thrown that out and bought some proper groceries. Now she was rather exhausted.<p>

She hadn't done anything about the kitchen table, mostly because she didn't know where to start with that mess. She hadn't gone up to their bedrooms either. What went on up there was none of her business.

She was giving her feet a much needed rest when she heard the door open downstairs.

"Mrs. Hudson?" Sherlock called.

She frowned and got up, hurrying over to the stairs. Sherlock was at the bottom, removing his coat.

"It is you," she said. She made her way down the stairs to greet him. "John said you weren't going to be discharged for another day or two."

"He wasn't," John said, appearing next to Sherlock. He gave him an annoyed look. "He signed himself out against medical advice."

"Sherlock!" Mrs. Hudson scolded him.

"I'm fine," he said. He bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek and made a small noise of pain. "I couldn't spent another hour in there without going homicidal. There are far better things to do with my brain than try to blow a ball up a little plastic tube."

"It's a spirometer, Sherlock," said John, who'd clearly had this conversation before. "Your brain won't be doing much if you get double pneumonia either. You're a rubbish patient."

"Of course I am," Sherlock said, unbothered by the accusation."I don't know why you thought I wouldn't be."

John rolled his eyes and moved his attention to her. "How are you Mrs. Hudson?" he asked. He gave her a kiss on the cheek as well.

"Oh, I'm fine dear," she said. She tried not to stare too hard at Sherlock's face, which was covered in yellowed bruises. Poor dear. "I've been worried about you both, of course. That nice inspector said you'd be fine, but you never know. All those hospital infections that they're always talking about in the newspapers and my friend Gladys, she was fine too and then up and died from...what do you call it? Embolism." She made a ticking noise with her tongue. "You two look well done in. You come upstairs and I'll make you a nice cup of tea."

She went back upstairs, her hip protesting a little at the number of times she'd been up and down already. No one was with her when she reached the top. Sherlock was making his way slowly up, his back ramrod straight and his mouth thin with concentration. John came up a few steps behind him, one hand held out slightly to catch him if he fell. Though considering he had one wrist in a cast and the other taped up, she didn't know how he thought he was going to be of any help if Sherlock lost his footing.

They both arrived safely at the second floor after a slow procession. Sherlock had gone very white where he wasn't yellow in the face and John's cheeks were flushed pink from the effort. Both were slightly out of breath.

"You two sit down," Mrs. Hudson said, making another clicking noise with her tongue. "I'll put on the kettle."

She went through to the kitchen and found the tea things, plugging the kettle in to boil. She checked on the boys while she waited for the whistle. Sherlock had only made it as far as the sofa and was sitting all tensed up on it. He relaxed his posture for a moment and winced, then tensed up again. John was in the chair, his head leaned back and his eyes closed.

"Do you want some biscuits, too, dear?" she asked, using the endearment to apply to either or both of them, whoever answered.

"Yes please," John said his eyes still closed. "Thank you, Mrs. Hudson."

Sherlock was staring at the desk where the computers were. "Everything on that table has been moved..." He made a pinching measurement with his fingers. "Approximately two inches to the left."

"I did a bit of tidying up," Mrs. Hudson said.

"Oh." Sherlock looked disappointed that the explanation wasn't more exciting. The poor thing was probably bored out of his mind in hospital without any mysteries to apply himself to.

"I put everything back where I found it, more or less," she said. "I know how you are about your things, dear."

"Hmm," Sherlock said, making a bit of a pouty face.

She smiled and returned to the kitchen to fetch the biscuits. She chatted as she worked, letting them know the latest gossip on the street. No one answered back, but Mrs. Hudson had never really needed another person to have a conversation.

She brought the plate of biscuits out, only to find that the reason she hadn't had any replies was because they'd both fallen asleep. Sherlock was curled up in a ball on the sofa, one arm hanging off of it and John's head had lolled to the side and he was snoring softly. She smiled at the sight and went back to turn the kettle off before it whistled and woke them.

She went over to the sofa and lifted Sherlock's arm up to where it should be. He moved it under his head, wincing in his sleep. She took the blanket from the top of the sofa and put it over him, then went to the cupboard to fetch another for John. She put that one over his legs and closed the curtains, and then tip-toed downstairs to let them have their rest.

hr

The next few days saw Mrs. Hudson up and down the stairs to 221b several times, taking care of the boys. They were both exhausted and both trying not to let it show, both trying to go on as normal. She'd found Sherlock asleep at his microscope, his arms wrapped around a loaf of bread and his head resting on top. She sent him off to bed, and it was sign of how badly off he was that he went without protest.

John was a little better about napping, though she did have to send him to bed once after she found him staring blankly at Pepper Pig on the telly.

She made sure they ate properly and took their pain medicine when they should. She hovered around, half expecting one of them to collapse at any moment. Sherlock's face was slowly heading toward its normal colour, but he still got awfully white when he moved around too much. John had headaches and bouts of dizziness, which he said was from the concussion and nothing to worry about. He often tilted to one side and grabbed a hold of whatever he could to keep himself from hitting the floor. Her heart stopped every time he did it.

Things eventually began to improve, however. She started to hear the comforting burr of their voices from upstairs as they chatted and the tromp of their feet on the steps as they came down to fetch the mail or get something from Speedy's (which was about as much as they had the stamina for). Perhaps the most comforting sign of normalcy returning was when she got up to get something for her hip in the middle of the night and heard the strains of Sherlock's violin. All those sounds she'd didn't realize she'd missed until they came back.

About a week after they'd returned home, she came upstairs in the morning to find a familiar scene in the flat. Sherlock was at his microscope and John was in the chair, with it turned to face him, and they were arguing.

"I just can't believe you don't know how to drive a car," John said.

"I don't have a license to drive a car," Sherlock corrected. "I'm sure in an emergency situation I could easily figure out how to operate a car."

John snorted. "It's not that easy, Sherlock, that's why people have licenses. It's a rite of passage, though. You never wanted to learn?"

"What's the point?" Sherlock said. "I live in London; if I need to get anywhere I can take a cab or a bus or the underground - or walk. I have nowhere to put a car of my own and it's impractical to have to pay for petrol in today's economy. Besides, my brain is better used being able to think in a vehicle than having to concentrate on not hitting pedestrians or ramming into idiotic drivers who can't manage the simple laws of traffic."

"Yeah, you know what? I wouldn't want you behind the wheel of a car," John said. Sherlock nodded in a 'so there' fashion and then they both laughed.

Mrs. Hudson felt a surge of affection for them at the sight of such a normal conversation.

"Oh, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock said. "We're out of tea."

She looked between them and nodded to herself, decidedly. "You'll have to get it yourself," she said. "I'm not your housekeeper, dear."

She turned at that and went back down to 221a, knowing they'd both be just fine.


End file.
